"As President Obama indicated during the campaign, there are just a few gun-related changes that we would like to make, and among them would be to re-institute the ban on the sale of assault weapons," Holder said. "I think that will have a positive impact in Mexico, at a minimum."

Holder said reinstating the ban would decrease the flow of guns from the U.S. into Mexico.

And Hillary:

"Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade. Our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the deaths of police officers, soldiers and civilians," Mrs. Clinton said.

Holder and Clinton are making some broad leaps in logic.

1) Weapons do not cause deaths. It’s a basic point in all gun control arguments that weapons have no volition. They are inaminate objects that humans must choose to use. People kill people. There is, however, truth to the notion that limiting access to effective killing tools makes it more difficult for people to kill people.

So, if we reframe Hillary’s idea into something more logically sound, she asserts that limiting the supply of guns from the US will make it harder for the Mexican cartels to obtain killing tools. Which brings us to:

2) There is no evidence that limiting access to US arms will diminish Mexican cartels’ ability to buy weapons. Hillary and Holder, and most of the pundits, repeat an unsupported assertion. The Mexicans get arms from US sources because that’s the easiest place, given the shared border and open relations. Imagine Holder confiscated all guns in the US, and closed down all the weapons plants. Would that mean these foreign criminals could not find guns anywhere else? Of course not.

As a direct parallel, the US passed a set of laws that made radically curtailed domestic production of already-illegal methamphetamines. With the best source eliminated, users turned to the next-best: Mexico. Meth became cheaper and more plentiful. As Clinton acknowledged, the restriction on supply has a had no effect on demand or consumption.

3) The Constitution does not empower the Federal Government to make laws for the benefit of a foreign power. Even if one concedes that some rights can be curtailed—I do not concede this—such a restriction must made to protect the rights of another American. As much as a safe and lawful Mexico would please my sensibilities, Mexican are not Americans. My right to keep arms shall not be infringed for the sake of Mexican society.

The policy prescriptions endorsed by Holder and Clinton seem to ignore the unseen. They propose rules without examining how the rules will be avoided. They over-reach their authority.

Are they fools? Or do have have some goal other than the stated benefit to Mexico? Who have Clinton and Holder sworn to protect and defend?